Hideo Kojima teases then dismisses PlayStation Studios acquisition

gamesradar.com:

PlayStation is not buying Kojima Productions, as studio founder Hideo Kojima clarified, dismissing theories sparked by… himself. 

This mess broke last night when Kojima abruptly posted this image from his Japanese Twitter account:

pic.twitter.com/T0LINRiH4GApril 15, 2022

If the PlayStation Studios logo wasn't on-the-nose enough, Death Stranding protagonist Sam Bridges has even been added into the ranks of PlayStation icons like God of War's Kratos and Ghost of Tsushima's Jin Sakai. You don't need an Odradek scanner to read between the lines here. It's easy to interpret this tweet as an oddly off-the-cuff but still on-brand announcement of PlayStation's next acquisition being Kojima Productions.

After seeing the fervor around this tweet – and perhaps after getting some emails and/or phone calls from confused representatives – Kojima took to his English Twitter account to set the record straight. 

"I'm sorry for the misunderstanding, but Kojima Productions has been and will continue to be an independent studio," he confirmed. 

Well, that's that then, isn't it? Classic Kojima behavior. Just tweeting a random image of my studio's most recognizable character alongside the properties and logo of one of my biggest partners – a partner that has repeatedly expressed its intent to buy more studios, no less. Not only that, this tweet came just two days after the PlayStation Studios website quietly added Death Stranding to its banner, hence the image Kojima tweeted. But no, apparently it's no big deal. As you were. 

This not-news follows a recent change of office for Kojima Productions, which is also probably not news, but you can't be too careful with Kojima.